Prelude to Iron and Sand
by The Queen of Asgard
Summary: Tony Stark has never had any experience in raising children. Good thing Chloe, his niece, has never had any experience with her uncle. However, after her mother and brother die, the two are stuck with each other and although neither of them are particularly happy with the arrangement, the two must work together to defeat an ancient evil that now threatens their world.


The day was far too warm for the black dress that Chloe Stark had donned in lieu of recent events. Not even the white canopy that provided shade to the people in the folding chairs could keep the heat of the California sun off her back. Already, she could feel the sweat beading underneath her pits and rolling down her back. However, she was numb to all of this and instead kept her eyes trained to the two caskets, one a light oak color and the other, quite a bit smaller, a dark red. The caskets were adorned in flowers and pictures of the occupants smiled up at the mourners, their glossy eyes unseeing.

The woman was quite beautiful with dark, flowing locks and bright green eyes. She held no sign of her true age but on her right, was a pretty girl with similar colored hair and dark gray eyes, warm and inviting. Both we laughing at some joke said only moments before, their mouths open in similar shapes. On the smaller coffin, a boy with jet black hair smiled up at the camera, the same girl pointing at something on the photographer's face. A cork board covered in thin fabric had more pictures of the three people, smiling, going on trips, dancing around in a small living room. There was never a moment that the three looked upset or distraught.

"Let us commend," The preacher at the head of the open graves was saying, "The souls of Leila and Jackson to the mercy of God." The congreation bowed their heads in respect but Chloe knew that probably 80% of the people there weren't religious. She sure as hell wasn't. She kept her eyes locked on the coffin and only dared to look up once. Across the way in another tent, a man with her mother's dark locks and dark eyes was watching her. Quickly, she averted her eyes and finally closed them, a prayer to whatever had taken her mother and brother away from her upon her lips, cursing its very existance.

Finally, the prayer ended and all eyes looked up again. "We therefore commit their bodies to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life. Amen."

"Amen," The crowd murmured as people began to filter away from the gravesite and back to their vehicles, tears falling onto silent markers like rain. Chloe too stood up but waited for the man with her mother's hair and dark eyes to walk over towards her. He was followed closely by a slender, pretty woman with bright red hair that seemed so out of place in with the dark funeral setting.

"I don't think that could have gone better," The man stated to no one in particular as if it had been a spectator sport instead of a funeral. Chloe glanced up at her uncle but chose not say anything. The trio walked between gravestones and weeping angels towards a sleek black sports car that had been washed especially for the occasion.

"Tony, show some respect." The woman said sharply as Chloe opened the back door of the car and crawled in, instantly pulling her headphones out of her bag and putting them over her ears, some obscure Swedish band filling her ears with their accented words. In all honesty, she didn't want to go live with her uncle. She didn't want to leave the comfort of her northern California home but...when the accident happened...

She quickly put the thought out of her mind, her pulse already speeding up as she thought about it. Bringing her hand up to the left side of her face, her fingers danced across skin that had been scarred and cut by the shattering glass and looked at the reflection that still made her heart shrivel up. Her once beautiful gray eyes were now gone for life, her left one now milky, a film covering its once beautiful sparkle now gone.

"Chloe, you know the doctors said not to touch it," the woman chided gently as Chloe glanced up, taking off her headphones to speak to her uncle's girlfriend.

"I know. It's just a bad habit." She apologized softly, taking her hand away from her face. She turned up the music a little louder and watched the headstones roll by. Finally, they rolled out onto a Malibu street and rocketed away, her uncle oblivious to the stares he received as they drove by, jaws hanging open and fingers pointing in his general direction. Now she was stuck here, instead of in a casket nex to her little brother and mother where she ought to have been. Her stomach churned with the memory waking up, doctors surrounding her, her eyes trying to decipher what was wrong with them.

Of course, the doctors had been sympathetic as they could possibly be, but...when was there too much sympathy in the world? She had been behind the wheel, practicing for her driving test on a particularly foggy night when out of the blue, a drunk driver had hit them head on, sending their SUV tumbling down the side of a cliff, crushing her brother's skull and piercing her mother's lungs. It was only the next morning when someone even discovered the car. They believed everyone was dead until they caught Chloe's fluttering pulse.

Needless to say the funeral had been closed casket. It was only a few days after the accident that billionare Tony Stark walked into Chloe's small room, bare and sterile like most hospital rooms. It had been the first time she had seen her uncle since she had been about 5. It took her a few moments to realize exactly who he was but when two and two finally came together...the pictures in tabloid magazines and the inventions out on the shelves of local stores...this man was pulled up a chair and sat down, watching her, her face riddled with scars.

"My god, you look just like her." He said, leaning forward, placing his elbows on his knees.

Chloe was silent for a few moments before speaking, "That's what her boyfriend said."

Tony chuckled and leaned back into the chair, "Has he come to see you?"

Slowly, she shook her head as Tony scoffed and rolled his eyes, "Figures. She always did know how to pick them."

Chloe was beyond speechless. She barely knew this man and here he was, insulting her dead mother and talking about her boyfriend like he actually cared about what happened in her life. "I don't mean to be rude but what the hell are you doing here?"

Eyebrows were arched as if he had just realized that he belonged in this room. Slowly, he reached into the pocket of his probably designer sports jacket and pulled out a piece of paper, unfolding it slowly. Clearing his throat, he began speaking, "Tony, you and I may have not gotten along at all when we were kids. Hell, we barely get along now but you're the closest thing I have to a family. That's why I'm placing Chloe and Jackson in your care if I may get hit by a bus tomorrow. Just...take care of them and make sure they stay out of trouble." He finished reading and then tucked the piece of paper back in his pocket, "In other words, I'm your legal guardian. I had my lawyers take care of any extra paperwork that may have been hanging over your head and so now, you're free to come with me."

"But I don't want to go with you. I want to go home." The words were off Chloe's tongue before she could stop them. Tony looked at her for a few more seconds before suddenly standing up and slipping his sunglasses over his eyes, "Well, tough cookies Chloe because of..." he glanced down at his watch, "2:30 this afternoon, I am your legal guardian. They said you'll probably be in here for another week but next Thursday, I'll come to pick you up."

Numbly, Chloe looked on, her mind completely raw from this information. Taking her silence as an agreement, he gave her a short, curt nod before turning on his heel and walking out the glass door. Chloe slowly lowered herself down into her bed as silent tears raced down her cheeks, thinking of what she would soon have to put up with.

It was that Thursday morning when Chloe could leave the hospital bed and wait for Tony to sign her out. He, of course, had gone out and bought her something suitable to wear. She now wore jeans that cost more than her entire wardrobe back home put together, a blazer and an offwhite frilly shirt that clashed with her messy, dirty hair, hollow eye sockets and scratched face. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't Tony that signed her out but a pretty redheaded woman who smiled fondly at Chloe as she stepped out of the elevator.

"You must be Chloe. I'm Pepper Potts, your uncle's girlfriend." She stuck out her hand and wordlessly, Chloe took it and shook it briefly. After a brief, awkward silence, Pepper cleared her throat and cinched her bag up high on her shoulder, "Anyway, I'm sorry Tony couldn't be here to pick you up himself but he had an emergency meeting. Shall we?"

Chloe nodded and followed Pepper out to a sleek sportscar that almost impressed Chloe. The key word being almost.

"I've looked over your school record. You were studying at MIT, right?" Pepper questioned her as she got into the car and pulled out another gift from Tony that had arrived not two days before: a fancy cell phone complete with music and movies that Chloe cherished. She scrolled through the movies and nearly cried out when she saw her mother's favorite, A Beautiful Mind, pop up.

"Yes." She responded curtly as Pepper put her foot on the gas and they drove away.

"Tony has a jet waiting for us at the Redmond Airport." Pepper explained, turning a corner sharply as some Oriental couple jumped out of the crosswalk they had just about to jaywalk across. "Your uncle did mention where he lives, right?"

"Mom said he lived in Malibu." Chloe responded, looking out the window, "How did you know about me at MIT?"

Turning another corner, the land began to transform from cityscape to country roads, "Your uncle did his research on you. Besides, when a Stark goes to MIT, they make it sound like the second coming of Christ." Pepper chuckled at her own joke as silence filled the car, "All jokes aside, Tony has some friends at MIT that told him. And they wish you the best."

Chloe nodded, signaling the end of the conversation. Finally, they pulled into an airport where a large private jet awaited them, staffed by two men and a woman all in black.

"Miss Potts," The woman greeted as she stepped out of the car and handed the keys to a suited man. He in turn got behind the wheel and drove off the lot where the jet was waiting, "Mr. Stark just phoned. He won't be back from Seattle until tomorrow."

"Doesn't surprise me," Pepper said, rolling her eyes, "Come on, I'm sure you'd like to get settled in."

Chloe nodded and hesitantly walked behind Pepper towards the great maw of the plane. The inside was what she expected any private jet to look like. It was elegant, classy staffed by handsome men and women, all in black. Chloe never felt so out of place.

"Come on, let's go sit down." Pepper hearded Chloe over to a chair where she promptly sat down and plugged in her headphones, wrapping a luxuriously soft blanket around her body to fight away the chill she never seemed to shake. She scrolled through the music before finding a song that reminded her of her little brother. The song Blackbird was the only song she could play on the guitar and every time she played it, her brother would sing along in his little high pitched 8 year old voice. It was their song and like driving a knife into an already opened wound, the song seemed to haunt her, making her feel like her family's ghost was drawing her back into their dark embrace.

* * *

_Blackbird singing in the dead of night,_  
_Take these broken wings and learn to fly, _  
_All your life, _  
_You were only waiting for this moment to arrive, _  
_Blackbird, _  
_Fly._

* * *

**So...this was actually an idea I came up with a little over two years ago but never put into effect. Chloe is based on a friend of mine who actually lost her mother and brother however, she lost her mother to cancer and her brother to drowning. She is way stronger than I will ever be and so that's why I based Chloe after her.**

**But...anyway, this takes place between Iron Man 2 and The Avengers and there will be a pretty significant gap. Now, this is a two part story so there will be a second one, hopefully as awesome as this one but don't expect this one to be ridiculously long. As always, reviews are appreciated but not needed. **

**Iron Man (c) Marvel**  
**Chloe Stark (My own creation)**


End file.
